Wild Animal Hosts look forward to meeting you

Jespha — The older ...

In Limpopo, bor­der­ing the his­toric Leydsdorp where gold was 1^st dis­covered in South Africa in 1891, you will find a wild­life reserve and sanc­tu­ary that is held in trust for more than 4500 res­cued wild animals.

Many wild anim­als have been res­cued by the SanWild Wildlife Emergency Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre over the years and what makes this reserve unique is that your hosts are the anim­als them­selves; Among them are two charm­ing French hippo bulls called Tonga and Aldo. They recently “immig­rated” to South Africa from Paris after being con­fis­cated by the French con­ser­va­tion author­it­ies from 2 sep­ar­ate trav­el­ling cir­cuses in France. KLM air­lines donated their air­fares and the hip­pos have form­ally been appoin­ted as the SanWild Wildlife Sanctuary’s ambas­sad­ors for 2008.

Tonga — a res­cued Hippo bull

Sharing the hip­pos safe “haven” are the neigh­bours who relo­cated to SanWild in 2006 before they could be hunted in a cull­ing oper­a­tion in KwaZulu Natal. The fam­ous Thukela ele­phants have now estab­lished them­selves in their new ter­rit­ory and learnt to trust and not fear mankind.

Lurking in the shad­ows and reg­u­larly seen on night game drives are the ter­rible trio; three hand raised brown hyenas who had a Thabazimbi farmer and his team search­ing for 48 hours after their mother’s untimely death to find the small unweaned cubs that would have died was it not for human inter­ven­tion. Called Noki, Tickle and Tom these very spe­cial creatures pres­ence is wel­comed in a wild­life reserve where anim­als most def­in­itely have the right of way.

Kariba and her new Giraffe friend

On reg­u­lar camp duty is Kariba, a hand raised gir­affe calf that was res­cued after her mother had been caught in a poacher’s snare. She has grown into a stun­ning young female who loves hanging around the tour­ist camp where she keeps a close eye on the vis­it­ing humans while act­ing as the camp’s Public Relations Officer.

It is only the pres­ence of yet another two wild anim­als res­cued from poach­ing that can per­suade Kariba to stand aside; Wireless and Tshu, two hand raised white rhi­nos also do enjoy vis­it­ing the water­hole and as they have no fear of humans may settle down for an after­noon nap in the shade.

Almost every animal in this reserve has a story to tell and you are now invited to meet them your­self and at the same time con­trib­ute to their wel­fare and safety.

Sadly this year has been par­tic­u­larly bad for anim­als in the 6000 hec­tare reserve as a res­ult of the pro­longed drought and SanWild urgently needs to raise funds to con­tinue to pur­chase food to keep the anim­als going until the 1^st rains will hope­fully fall at the end of October or early November this year.

The last time SanWild had any rain was in December 2007 and con­di­tions are pretty tough for the anim­als. However in this unique sanc­tu­ary, man works effort­lessly to pro­tect and ensure the wel­fare of the anim­als under their cus­todi­an­ship and have been put­ting out sup­ple­ment feed­ing to min­im­ise the anim­als struggle to sur­vive. You too can now join the SanWild team to make a real dif­fer­ence and help save anim­als’ lives by book­ing your stay with SanWild to exper­i­ence this unique animal wel­fare project.

Named after a res­cued leo­pard that is reg­u­larly spot­ted at the water­hole just below the camp, the Savannah Camp offers styl­ish accom­mod­a­tion in private chalets under thatch each with its own bath­room. A res­id­ent chef (she is a human) pre­pares all your meals while you can relax on the ver­anda view­ing anim­als that visit the waterhole.

For more inform­a­tion please phone Lizel Kachelhoffer on 021–9871493 or visit:
SanWild Wildlife Sanctuary & Game Reserve

Website Links & Related Pages:
http://www.sanwild.org
http://www.afritrust.com

Editors Note:
The SanWild Wildlife Emergency Rescue Unit has been in oper­a­tion in South Africa’s Limpopo Province since 2000. During the last 7.5 years numer­ous injured, orphaned and trau­mat­ized wild anim­als have been given a second chance as a res­ult of the quick and effect­ive response by a group of caring indi­vidu­als. The SanWild Wildlife Trust’s main object­ive is to res­cue injured, orphaned and trau­mat­ised wild anim­als and to make avail­able a safe and pro­tec­ted refuge for res­cued animals.

Please con­sider help­ing in any way you can...
Make a dona­tion, spon­sor an animal (you can "adopt" an animal), volun­teer, book a hol­i­day ... Visit the Afritrust web­site to get involved! http://www.afritrust.com